Fundulea

From World travel guide

Downtown Mendoza.jpg Fundulea is an agricultural town located in the Călăraşi County, Romania. It is located on the Bărăgan Plain, approximately 30 km east of the capital Bucharest, in the historical region of Wallachia. It has a population of 6,217. The A2 freeway and Mostiştea River pass through its vicinity.

Historically, Fundulea's outskirts housed a military base maintained by the Romanian Army. The town is home to an agricultural institute, the National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Template:Lang-ro, INCDA). A reservoir known as Lake Fundulea, fed by water from the Mostiştea, is a popular spot for sport fishing.

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History

During the 19th century, the village of Fundulea housed the Sionu estate of writer Gheorghe Sion, which, through the 1923 marriage of his daughter Marica, became the property of eccentric novelist, poet, and heraldist Mateiu Caragiale.<ref name="perpess">Perpessicius, "Tabel cronologic", in Mateiu Caragiale, Craii de Curtea-Veche, Editura pentru Literatură, Bucharest, 1965, p.XIX, XXI. Template:OCLC</ref> Caragiale intended to turn it into a private domain, and reportedly flew an ensign he had created for himself.<ref name="perpess"/>

The INCDA was created in 1962, during the Communist period, through the merger between the Research Institute for Maize Cultivation (Institutul de Cercetări pentru Cultura Porumbului) and the Field Cultivation Department (Departamentul Culturilor de Câmp) of the Romanian Agronomic Institute.<ref>Official site of INCDA Fundulea; retrieved July 10, 2007</ref>

Fundulea is also the birthplace of novelist Mircea Nedelciu (1950-1999), in whose honor a local primary school was named in 2002.<ref>Template:Ro icon Ion Bogdan Lefter, "Şcoala 'Mircea Nedelciu' ", in Observator Cultural; retrieved July 10, 2007</ref>

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